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Public Health Center for Tobacco Research Staff

Pratibha Nayak, Ph.D., MPH,, Principal Research Scientist

Principal Research Scientist Pratibha Nayak, Ph.D., MPH, has 10 years of experience conducting behavioral research to lower the burden of cancer and tobacco-related disparity. Pratibha conducts research across multiple disciplines and has published more than 20 papers in peer-reviewed journals that focus on health behaviors, cancer survivorship, quality of life, racial/ethnic disparities, and tobacco use. She has worked on federally funded research projects related to young adults and their risk perceptions, as well as use behaviors related to e-cigarettes. Pratibha completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Georgia State University’s Tobacco Control Regulatory Science Center and has received the Health Disparities Network – Young Scholar Award from the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco. Pratibha is particularly interested in research that will inform FDA regulatory actions regarding consumer purchasing of alternative tobacco products, including e-cigarettes.

Theodore Klupinski, Ph.D., Principal Research Scientist

Theodore Klupinski, Ph.D., brings more than 20 years of experience in analytical chemistry, environmental chemistry, and organic chemistry. He is leading innovation in the application of advanced analytical chemistry techniques and custom-designed data-processing algorithms to identify chemicals in complex mixtures, including tobacco smoke and biological samples. In addition, Theodore contributes to improving analytical chemistry capabilities for quantifying HPHCs in different classes of tobacco products. His research interests also include studying the connections between user behavior and exposure.

Amy M. Cohn, Ph.D., Senior Research Scientist

Amanda T. Berger, Ph.D., Principal Research Scientist

Amanda T. Berger offers expertise in tobacco regulatory science and health communications. She currently serves as the formative research Task Lead for the CDC National Tobacco Education Campaign. Prior to her work at Battelle, Amanda completed a mid-career Tobacco Regulatory Science Fellowship at the FDA CTP. In this role, her work involved the formative research and evaluation of The Real Cost, an evidence-based public education campaign to prevent youth tobacco use. Her work over the past decade has been funded through numerous Department of Health and Human Services vehicles, including those from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Department of Education, the Office of Population Affairs and the Office of Adolescent Health.

Anna M. Adetona, Ph.D, Research Scientist

Anna M. Adetona, Ph.D., is a toxicologist who brings seven years of research experience in public health, including the measurement of human exposures and their effect on biomarkers of inflammation and oxidative stress. Prior to her work at Battelle, she was involved in several research projects involving the characterization of wood smoke exposure among wildland firefighters and pregnant women in Peru. Anna is currently serving as the Scientific Task Lead on two waterpipe projects: a Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-funded waterpipe study examining the HPHC content of waterpipe tobacco use waste products, and a National Institute of Health (NIH)/Tobacco Regulatory Science Program (TRSP)-funded R01 grant quantifying the effect of waterpipe tobacco ingredients on human puffing topography, exposures and appeal.

Meridith Hill Thanner, Ph.D., PMP, Principal Research Scientist

Principal Research Scientist Meridith Hill Thanner, manages several high-profile clinical and observational studies funded by FDA and CDC on such topics as the pharmacokinetics of e-cigarette and smokeless tobacco use, and on the effect of secondhand exposure to e-cigarette vapor. As a trained sociologist, Dr. Thanner also has extensive field and ethnographic experience working with varied population groups such as military personnel and their families, prisoners, substance abusers, and juveniles. She has co-authored more than 18 journal articles/book chapters, and sole authored a book based on her dissertation fieldwork. She is experienced in both quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis methods, in survey and in-depth interviewing design, and in all aspects of project management.

Jennifer (Malson) Potts, MA, oversees the portfolio of research projects at the Battelle Public Health Center for Tobacco Research. She brings 20 years of experience conducting and managing clinical research, including extensive experience in research methods, study design/development, protocol implementation and administration, data analysis, report writing and manuscript preparation. Her research has focused on assessing use behaviors, acute and chronic toxicant exposure and the subjective experiences of consumers, using different types of conventional and nonconventional tobacco and nicotine products.

Wallace Pickworth, Ph.D., Research Leader

Wallace Pickworth, Ph.D., directs clinical research on tobacco and nicotine. Over a career of more than 30 years— including nearly 30 years with the NIH— he has made numerous contributions to the field of drug addiction and tobacco dependence, and is a recognized expert in the measurement of smoking topography, toxicant exposure, and the physiologic and psychological effects of nicotine/tobacco exposure. He has acted as Principal Investigator on numerous studies for academic and health care institutions, private industry and national and international scientific and regulatory agencies, and published more than 100 peer-reviewed papers, book chapters and technical reports. Wallace serves as an adjunct faculty at two colleges of pharmacy and is on the presidential advisory council at the Albany College of Pharmacy.

Vladimir B. Mikheev, Ph.D, Principal Research Scientist

Vladimir B. Mikheev, PhD, has more than 35 years of experience characterizing and generating complex physicochemical mixtures, such as e-cigarette aerosol, mainstream and sidestream tobacco smoke, liquid aerosol, dust particles, nanoparticles, and vapors containing organic and inorganic compounds. He has served as a Research Leader on a variety of in-vivo aerosol exposure studies funded by NIH, and as a Principal Investigator, Co-Investigator, or a Key Researcher on academic, FDA, and DOE-funded studies. He is
currently investigating how product design and operating conditions of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) affect the physical and chemical properties of aerosol/vapor inhaled by users.

Bartosz Koszowski, Ph.D., Pharm.D., Principal Research Scientist

Bartosz Koszowski, PhD, PharmD, joined Battelle in 2013. In his current role at Battelle, Bartosz manages tobacco research focusing on product regulation and public health. He also leads tobacco pharmacology studies on commercial and modified tobacco products, supporting tobacco regulatory and public health efforts. He has been involved in studies related to product use, tobacco biomarker pharmacokinetics, topographical measures, tobacco product risk perceptions, and passive exposure, among other areas. He has over 13 years of tobacco experience and has a background in analytical chemistry methods. Bartosz has ongoing research interest in smoking patterns involving various tobacco products: cigars, e-cigarettes, cigarettes, roll-your-own, and waterpipes. In addition to his work at Battelle, he has faculty appointments with the Notre Dame of
Maryland University School of Pharmacy and the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy.

Kim Hyoshin, Ph.D., Senior Research Scientist

Hyoshin Kim, Ph.D., brings more than 20 years of experience in public health research with a focus on tobacco control. She is an expert in program evaluation, measure development, research design, statistical analysis, and quantitative modeling. Serving as Principal Investigator or Co-Investigator on a number of NIH grants and FDA studies designed to inform public health policy, Hyoshin has examined a wide range of tobacco research questions using data from laboratory experimental studies, as well as population-level studies. Her current research focuses on use behavior measurement, puffing topography, sensory perception of flavor and appeal, and abuse liability for a variety of tobacco products.

Stephanie Buehler, Ph.D., Principal Research Scientist

Stephanie S. Buehler, Ph.D., is an environmental analytical chemist with more than 15 years of experience in the assessment of human exposures to tobacco-related compounds and environmental toxins. She has evaluated, validated and applied various methods for monitoring human exposure to toxic semivolatile organic compounds (SVOCs), including PAHs, TSNAs, nicotine, cotinine, pesticides and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). These studies have encompassed a variety of sample matrices, including indoor and outdoor air, hand wipes, house dust, food preparation surface wipes, food, breast milk, and beverages. Stephanie currently serves as a Principal Investigator in the UMD/Battelle TCORS on Research Project 1, developing the study design and providing technical direction for the investigation of e-cigarette real-world use behaviors and human exposures to HPHCs, as well as differences in HPHC exposures from flavored little cigars.